A Lonely Resurrection

you.”
    “Social visit.”
    “All right.”
    “When?”
    “I’ll be in town tonight. Same place as last time?”
    I hesitated again, then said, “Don’t know if we’ll be able to get in. There’s a hotel very near there, though, with a good bar. My kind of place. You know what I’m talking about?”
    I was referring to the bar at the Osaka Ritz-Carlton.
    “I imagine I can find it.”
    “I’ll meet you at the bar at the same time we met last time.”
    “Yes. I will look forward to seeing you then.” A pause. Then: “Thank you.”
    I hung up.

CHAPTER 7
    I took the Hankyu train back to Osaka and went straight to the Ritz. I wanted to be sure I was in position at least a few hours early, in case there was anything I would want to see coming. I ordered a fruit and cheese plate and drank Darjeeling tea while I waited.
    Tatsu was punctual, as always. He was courteous, too, moving slowly and letting me see him to show he didn’t intend any surprises. He sat across from me in one of the upholstered chairs. He looked around, taking in the light wood paneling, the wall sconces and chandeliers.
    “I need your assistance again,” he said, after a moment.
    Predictable. And right to the point, as always. But I’d make him wait before responding. “You want a whisky?” I asked. “They’ve got a nice twelve-year-old Cragganmore.”
    He shook his head. “I’d like to join you, but my doctor advises me to refrain from such indulgences.”
    “I didn’t know you listened to your doctor.”
    He pursed his lips as though in preparation for a painful admission. “My wife, too, has become strict about such matters.”
    I looked at him and smiled, faintly surprised at the image of this tough, resourceful guy deferring sheepishly to a wife.
    “What is it?” he asked.
    I told him the truth. “It’s always good to see you, you bastard.”
    He smiled back, a network of creases appearing around his eyes.
“Kochira koso.”
The same here.
    He gestured to the waitress and ordered chamomile tea. Because he wasn’t drinking, I stayed away from the Cragganmore. A small pity.
    Then he turned to me. “As I said, I need your assistance again.”
    I drummed my fingers along my glass. “I thought this was a social visit.”
    He nodded. “I was lying.”
    I had already known that, and he knew that I knew. Still: “I thought you said I could trust you.”
    “On the important things, certainly. Anyway, a social visit doesn’t preclude a request for a favor.”
    “Is that what you’re asking for? A favor?”
    He shrugged. “You are no longer obligated to me.”
    “I used to get paid a lot of money when I did favors for people.”
    “I am pleased to hear you say ‘used to.’”
    “I was able to say it pretty accurately, until just recently.”
    “May I continue?”
    “As long as we’re clear from the outset that there’s no obligation here.”
    “As I have said.” He paused to withdraw a tin of mints from inside his coat pocket. He opened the tin and extended it toward me. I shook my head. He withdrew a mint and placed it in his mouth without dipping his head or stopping to look at what he was doing. It wasn’t Tatsu’s way to take his eyes off what was going on around him, and it showed in the little things as well as the more significant.
    “The weightlifter was a front man,” he said. “It is true that he looked like a Neanderthal, but in fact he was part of the new generation of organized crime in Japan. His specialty, in which he had proven himself unusually adept, was the establishment of legitimate, sustainable businesses, behind which his less progressive cohorts could then hide.”
    I nodded, knowing the phenomenon. The new generation, recognizing that tattoos, loud suits, and an aggressive manner offered them only limited upside in the society, was casting off its criminal persona and foraying into legitimate businesses like real estate and entertainment. The older generation, still wedded to drugs, prostitution, and control of the construction industry, was coming to rely on these upstarts for money laundering, tax avoidance, and other services. And, at the same time, the newcomers went to their forebears whenever the competitive pressures of business might be eased by the timely application of some of the traditional tools of the trade—bribery, extortion, murder—in which the older generation continued to specialize. It was a symbiotic division of labor that would have made a classical